Face Lift

On Tuesday we picked up the last three new Milguard windows that will replace three of the four windows in the living room.

On Thursday we visited Pratt & Larson to look at tile for the fireplace.. With a change in the fireplace tile we will completely bid farewell to the 1940s "Barbie doll pink" that was everywhere in our house.

We are thinking of a geometric pattern with the sunny color as the main color and the blue and red colors alternating as accent colors. What da' ya' think?

Today we are playing catch-up with yard work, but tomorrow it is full steam ahead with the living room face lift.

Second-To-The-Last

We have been hard at it and have finished another room. Yea! Our bedroom seemed to go more quickly than some of the other rooms, perhaps because much of it (except for the insulation job) was cosmetic work. However, we refreshed everything, including trim, windows, furniture and walls. We also think this room went fast because we are getting better at plaster work and painting, plus we have experience researching new items and understand what we like and want better than we did at the start of this project. It was a snap to decide on a ceiling fan and a new bedspread. Don installed the final touch today; the Venetian blinds. Here are are few photos of the final results...

Don modified the headboard he built 40-some years ago to allow for our new queen-sized mattress.

We love our old-fashioned twin closets - but what a lot of woodwork!

We are happy to be back in our airy, upstairs bedroom.

Only the living room remains to finish, and we are well on our way in there. We also want to completely refresh the six cupboards and the window area in the landing outside our bedroom, not exactly a room, per-say. However you look at it, we feel the finish line is in sight!

Kitty Good Seal of Approval

Our Bedroom is almost done! Don refinished the tops of the oak bookcase and night stands that he built forty years ago. Sami finished painting the walls and Don put the final touches on the ceiling. We have added a new bedspread and pillows. As you can see, Daphne has given it the thumbs-up, kitty-style.

Report

We are plowing ahead. We spent a day insulating the living room and our bedroom. We are old hands at this because we did the same thing in the main floor bedroom. Finally all of our walls are insulated! Next Don went through the process of repairing all of the holes that he had to cut in the walls in our bedroom.

Sami fed insulation into the machine outside and Don blew it into the holes.

We are also old hands at plastering, sanding, priming, and painting.

We will finish in the bedroom and then move on to the living room and the landing upstairs. The home stretch!

Gone is the wall paper we added 25 years ago.

We are going for a quiet, peaceful color scheme in the bedroom. The walls and ceiling are a light blue color called "Constellation," and the accent wall, behind the headboard is called, "Tranquility." Tranquility is a difficult color to describe. It is a grayed blue-green, and it looks different in different lights.

You can see the contrast color on the wall behind Don.

Back Down the Stairs

We are moving ahead with the final part of the project. Sami has put heavy-duty ribbed plastic shelf paper in all of the shelves and drawers in the kitchen. Don is drilling holes in the uninsulated walls of our bedroom and the living room. We hope to rent the machine and blow in the insulation tomorrow. Meanwhile, we have moved back down to the basement, this time with our bedroom. It is so very quiet and dark down there, but comfortable.

Don is also putting back the window trim.

For now this is our bedroom. When we are done with the remodel it will become Don's train room.

FIRE In Our Eyes!

We are bound and determined to finish the remodel (Do we hear you say... "Its about time!"). We have putzed along slowly for the last couple of months, focusing on other projects instead, but we are back at it now. There are really only three areas left to do; the living room, our bedroom, and the stairway and landing to the second floor. For the first time since we began the project we are giving our selves a deadline.... we want to be done by the end of the summer. The reason is, we have a family reunion and a 50th wedding anniversary party scheduled for Labor Day weekend So, the heat is ON.

Moving out of the living room is step one.

We are tackling the living room first. We know at least one, and perhaps all three exterior walls need to be insulated. We plan on blowing the insulation in from the inside, just like we did in the main floor bedroom. Then we will repair all the the plaster, and add new windows and window coverings, After that we will paint and do any spiffing up of furniture that is needed.

We decided we don't like our bargain dining set and hope to sell it.

Drop clothes will protect the few things left in the living room.

Almost ready to start drilling holes in the wall to prepare for insulating.

Rooms That Aren't Rooms

We have had lots of interruptions in the last few months. Both Sami and Don have been at Oliver's school several days a week working with the kids in their Oregon Battle of the Books volunteer project. And, both Sami and Don came down with a cold that rendered them unable to do much besides moan for several weeks (it was the worst!). However, through it all, we plugged away at the remodel. We are now finished with two areas that are as big and complex as any of the rooms we have worked on, but they are not rooms! The entryway by the kitchen has four doors (and a cat door), five switch plates, six switches, and what felt like miles of trim and a bucket full of hardware. The walls there are all bead-board, full of gouges and scraped paint. But after completely re-doing every surface and every detail, the area doesn't look much different than it did before we started.

Don refinished the long handrail going down to the basement and made a new handrail from the kitchen to the landing.

 The same was true of the front entryway. Don went through a large bucket of mud to repair all of the cracks in the plaster walls and became a master plasterer to repair a bulge in the front entryway stairwell wall. He also refinished all the old wood trim.. There was more wall space to paint there than in any of the other rooms.

The area with the bulge looked strangely guitar-like.

 But after it is all said and done, it looks lovely, but not surprisingly different than it did before.

 Even though our work didn't change the appearance of these areas a lot, WE know how much work it took, and decided it warranted a little celebration.